In today's environment most families consist of either two working spouses or a single working parent. As a consequence, at least one parent must come home from a long day at work and tackle the decision of what to make for dinner. Since the parent usually gets home from work around dinner time, the children and other family members are usually already hungry and tired. This situation often puts much stress on family members, in particular, the parent tasked with determining what meal to prepare (the primary care providing parent). The primary care providing parent is often pressured to prepare something quickly. Under this pressure, the parent opts most of the time for something simple and quick--if they have all the ingredients that they need to prepare the meal. If the parent does not have all the ingredients, he or she must make a trip to the store or figure out what they can make out of the ingredients at home. As a consequence of this situation, the family's menu is unimaginative. The family will therefore typically end up eating the same food over and over again, or the family will eat food from the same outside vendor (take-out).
The above problems would not exist if a maid is hired to perform the meal preparation task described. However, only wealthy families can afford the luxury of a maid. The above problems would also not exist if the primary care providing parent does not work. The stay-home-parent could select a meal, buy the necessary ingredients, and have the food prepared by the time everyone else in the family returned home. This solution may also not be feasible if both spouses enjoy their work and neither one wants to give up his or her career. Furthermore, in many situations, it may not be economically feasible to have only one parent working.
It is therefore desirable to have a system that allows for automated meal selection and shopping. Although actually cooking the meal requires some amount of work, the process of selection and shopping may actually be more time consuming and stressful. The system would also help with the cooking chores by providing detailed cooking instructions to the user.
Just as a good maid or a stay-at-home parent, the system would learn and adapt to the family's food preferences, and make the meal selections accordingly. In addition, just as a maid or stay-at-home parent, the system would also track what meals the family has eaten in the past to avoid needless repetition.